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Scientists Levitate Mice for NASA
sterlingda writes to tell us that scientists have built a mouse-levitating superconducting magnet, working on behalf of NASA to study variable levels of gravity. The group hopes to ascertain what physiological impacts prolonged exposure to microgravity might have. "Repeated levitation tests showed the mice, even when not sedated, could quickly acclimate to levitation inside the cage. After three or four hours, the mice acted normally, including eating and drinking. The strong magnetic fields did not seem to have any negative impacts on the mice in the short term, and past studies have shown that rats did not suffer from adverse effects after 10 weeks of strong, non-levitating magnetic fields."
I was going to mod you down, then I decided to respond instead.
Slashdot has always been behind the "news" cycle.
This is fine. Most people don't come here for breaking news, they come here for (sometimes) informative, enlightened, or humorous discussion of the article and related topics.
I'll just add that your griping is none of those things. If what you care about is being the first to read about something, then please feel free to go elsewhere. And feel free to not bother with the discussion on Slashdot when the same item is up a day or two later... you won't be missed if what you post is similar to the post I'm responding to.
Oh, and one last thing... Slashdot is a news aggregator. There is very, very little original content in the items posted to the main page. However, it is a community-driven site. If you're unhappy that items come through later here than elsewhere, one thing YOU can do to improve it is to submit articles yourself in a timely manner.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
> It seems that these days, slashdot takes all of its news from gizmodo, wired,
> and ars.
And therefor I miss nothing important by not reading those sites while avoiding a great deal of crap.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Why does everyone think it's normal for mice, to eat partially digested and rotten (with the help of bacteria) cow milk? What do you think they do without humans? Suck on tits of dead cows? ^^
For that matter, why does anyone think it's normal for humans to eat cow secretions?
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
Because humans eat human secretions for years when they are growing up (until the event of Formula and the use of Cow's milk meant we didn't need to breastfeed (or to do so for as long).
Cows are mammals just like humans, and produce a milk that is somewhat similar, but in much greater volumes. It's really not that strange once you make the leap to keeping domesticated cattle for food and material(skins).
There are even some human cultures (in mongolia) that depend greatly on cows milk, and others (Massai tribesman) whose diet is a large part cows blood.
What doesn't give energy/nutrition will kill if eaten exclusively. If you ate only grass for long enough, you would be dead. Just because it isn't in ten minutes, doesn't mean it falls on the not-dead side. Unless you adapt to digesting grass sufficiently before you stave to death.
Life's great, ain't it.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
That's begging the question. By definition, whatever humans do as a species is ipso facto *normal*. What is considered normal will change over time though.
Stop right there... http://begthequestion.info/
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.